30 Meals People Have Finally Learned To Enjoy As Adults After Discovering Their Parents Were Making It Wrong Throughout Their Childhood
Many years ago, Albert Einstein stated that everything in this universe is relative. Of course, the great physicist did not mean such an ordinary thing as food, but still, if we talk about the scale of the Universe, then food also fits these criteria. Especially since Einstein was one hundred percent right about food - and here's why.
Have you ever felt like you hated certain foods as a child? Just imagine that your parents put a plate with something on the table for you, and you literally turn inside out just from the smell or appearance of this dish. It's quite possible that it happened.
And then, after many years or even decades, as adults, we go to a restaurant or visit someone, and we are offered the very same dish. Of course, we flatly refuse - after all, we know what unimaginable muck it is, but we are somehow persuaded... And then a real miracle happens: only after tasting, we suddenly realize how incredibly delicious this dish is!
The whole point, it turns out, is that our parents simply did not know how to cook - either in general, or this particular dish. For example, they did not add spices, oils, or, say, just overcooked it. But in fact, one has only to turn over the stove to a skilled chef, and it turns out that this is a real culinary masterpiece, and we desperately regret those years that we did not touch this masterpiece, sincerely believing it to be inedible and disgusting. Damn it, old Albert, how right you were!
A similar question was asked recently on the AskReddit community: "What food did you hate as a child because of the way it was prepared only to find out as an adult it was amazing when made correctly?" And you know what? It turns out that there are hundreds and thousands of people like us! At least right now, the original thread boasts over 2.1K upvotes and nearly 2.8K various comments, behind almost every one of which is a heartbreaking story of pure kitchen hatred and sudden epiphany.
Bored Panda has compiled for you a list of the most popular, original and interesting tales of the original thread, so now please feel free to scroll to the very end, mark your favorite submissions and be sure to share your own story if this happened to you as well. In the end, as the same Einstein said, "common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen."
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My neighbor (he's 80+ now), told me a funny story relating to this.
He grew up in rural WV. When he was in his 20's, he was doing some odd job work in the city for a woman homeowner. At the end of a day of work, she offered to cook him dinner.
She asked "Do you like steak?"
He said "Yea I guess."
She said "How do you take it?"
He didn't understand what that meant.
She says "How would you like it done?"
He still didn't get it.
He says "Cooked?"
This is the day he learned of doneness for steak. The first time he'd heard of food being able to be "done" by request. He had never had any meat that wasn't fried to a crisp. He said his mother made everything the same way: Fry it or boil it down. She would put fat in the pan, and fry the meat.
He said this particular steak, and meal, was the best he'd ever had in his life. First time tasting properly cooked food.
Brussels Sprouts!
Apparently boiling the s**t out of something until they're mushy and watery is not great. Lightly grilled/broiled with some oil and seasoning and they're one of my favorite dishes.
Obviously wasn't a huge veggie fan until I started roasting veggies in the oven as an adult. Roasted carrots are so freaking good.
Learning how to roast vegetables was a game changer for me. I hated veggies growing up (mostly home-canned and boiled), but when I learned to roast fresh veggies, my world got a lot bigger.
Basically everything. My mother was a good person who loved her family, but she couldn't cook for s**t. EVERYTHING was boiled until it was grey, and the meat was dried to holy hell and the vegetables had the consistency of pudding. Her ONLY move in the kitchen was to put a (not even cleaned of connective tissue) hunk of whatever animal we were desecrating tonight for dinner in a 350 degree oven, in a roasting pan with too much water. OFTEN FOR THREE OR MORE HOURS. It never one time occurred to her to try lowering the heat or the cooking time, but she always complained that "white meat is dry". Yeah, because you basically scorched the s**t out of it!
I fired her from cooking duties at 14 and it was the best move I ever made. I'm no Michelin star chef, but I'll make you happy at my table.
My mother was a vegetarian. She was also a bad cook, even of vegetarian meals, but she cooked meat dishes for us but had a limited repertoire. She used to boil sausages-she would peel the sausage casing off leaving the sausage meat crumbling to pieces, and boil it in water to cook the fat out. We ended up with a sort of grey soup with crumbled pork mince. Roast beef was always roasted/broiled until it was completely grey-no hint of pink to be seen. Then she's complain about the price of a roasting joint and about how it had shrunk down to absolutely nothing. Liver and onions we had once a week (for the iron). She would chop onions into chunks, then balance slabs of liver on top, pour over water and put it in the oven to bake-it was like eating carpet underlay. We started cooking for ourselves aged 10-12. I dread to think of the amount of money she had wasted until then because she refused to look at a cook book despite everything she made being virtually inedible.
I'm a vegetarian; my partner is not. I have been permanently banned from cooking bacon because I always panic and over-cook it. I can deal with ground meat or slow-cooker meat, but anyone who wants bacon can cook it for themselves.
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It amazes me how some people seem to forget things like recipe's! U CAN learn to cook people! And kudos to OP for taking it over instead of just always complaining about the food
My brother is a professional chef, and I'm no slouch, either. We have our differences but we both agree that we learned how to cook for survival- Our mom did her best, and there are at least 2 dishes I really like and continue to cook, but thank God for the cooking classes in public school for teaching us how to cook better and how to shop for food. Thank you PBS for James Beard and Julia Child's programs that opened our eyes and palates . Thank you, Mrs Smith, my Home Ec teacher, for teaching us all how to sew and cook, 2 of the most basic skills everyone needs to know how to do.
Your mom tricked you into being the chef lol as a mother, I am going to try it now!!!
Lol it could work, but I don't think I could stand to eat horribly prepared food for 14 years until someone decides to take over!
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I'm both surprised and not surprised at the number of us who grew up this way. My mom is now 65 and she still can't cook. Her mom, my grandma whom we grew up with, was arguably the worst cook on Earth.
No, my mother was definitely the winner of that prize. She used to take a decent looking steak, bash the hell out of it until it was the size of a dinner plate and then put it in a really hot oven for TWO HOURS until it was well and truly cremated. When the steak went into the oven the veggies were put on the stove to boil. I actually looked forward to school lunches, they were so much better than home cooked food!
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Just gonna point out that the vast majority of these stories shared here say how their mother was a terrible cook and not a single one says anything about their father. Plenty of them continue on to speak on how they never had good food until they got married....(aka found another woman to perform the task for them.) Good on you for taking life skills into your own hands! Sorry that you had to suffer with bad food for years to do so though...that's truly a rough go. Everybody should have good food memories growing up rather than traumatic experiences.
Some friends of mine both learned to cook as 'self defense' from their mother whose favorite dish was Reservations.
Lovely you decided too cook instead of her <3 Cooking is a lot of work and for her it must have been very relieving not having to do it, especially since nobody (probably including herself) liked it.
I'm a chef. When people ask how I got started, I claim self defense against my mother's cooking
My grandma cooks everything in a ton of grease. I used to wait until she wasn't looking to dump my scrambled eggs in a few paper towels to soak up the grease before I could eat them.
I'm another one who learned to cook and took over cooking duties from my parents in self-defense! I was around 10yrs old and Dear Sweet Mama could burn water. Poor 'Ol Dad could make chili (using every pot in the house), but nothing else. Both parents also worked, so it was nice for them to come home to dinner already on the table!
Sounds familiar. I also learned to cook in self defense. Even though she was a terrible cook, my mom was a decent baker. Except for pastry (unless you needed to re-sole shoes) and biscuits (unless you needed hockey pucks.)
This is why I can't eat corned beef and cabbage. Boiled meet is DISGUSTING no matter what is done to it.
The image used here is probably of hot pots. Which is supposed to be like this. It's broth, boiling. Wrong image to 7se for this post, poor BP...
My Grandmother made "brown dinners". Everything...meat, potatoes, veg, dessert. All tasted the same. Had to eat a bit of brown everything. Yuk.
My mother was a terrible cook - we called her hamburgers "hockey pucks," and her meatloaf was "adobe brick."
The number of guys I've dated who cook EVERY SINGLE THING on high heat because "it cooks faster that way" is too dang many. I once quite literally broke up with someone just a few days in because he did this, and also kept adding salt and pepper continuously through the entire cooking process. "That's what chefs do, isn't it?" he said, pantomiming his idea of what a chef looks like. He wasn't a bad guy, but I didn't have the patience to train him over to the positive side of the number line.
Sigh. No wonder so many woman were depressed in the day. Oh yes. They all overnight developed some magical cooking and housekeeping skills and fed their families gourmtastic delights! I would of been on the valium too. Now they all get to hear what dreadful cooks they were. Who would bother? No wonder frozen meals became popular.
Spinach. My dad would only eat canned spinach that was then boiled. Found out later that fresh spinach is a wonderfully flavorful green and is best either crisp, or cooked until slightly wilted.
Blanch spinach, toss with light seasoning and olive oil, and bake/fry/mix with pretty much anything.
Pork chops and steaks were s**t until i realized they should not actually be prepared for use in the NHL. I love my mom dearly and for that, i must keep her out of the kitchen for her safety and that of the world.
Vegetables. All of them basically, my mom would boil them to sludge every time.
Pot roast, I hated how dry and flavorless it was. I actually wrote an essay about it in my English class. The teacher showed it to my mom and she changed up her recipe lol
"Mayo" Didn't realize there was a difference between Miracle Whip and Mayo and my Mom only bought Miracle Whip.
Miracle Whip: too sweet for savory dishes, not sweet enough for desserts.
Daughter of depression era parents here: grew up with a lot of canned/tinned vegetables. Jesus, canned asparagus is tough, sinewy and slimy all at the same time. Freshly steamed with a pat of butter is amazing! Even now when I mention it's one of our favourites, my older relatives gasp and say "you buy it out of season?" like we're billionaires.
Meatloaf. My parents were in love with a specific **teriyaki** sauce they bought in 2 gallon jugs from Costco and drowned an otherwise plain lump of ground beef with and called that a teriyaki glazed meatloaf... it oughta be a crime.
Flash forward to my seasoned beef/pork mix with italian herbs, parmesan, and just the right amount of a sweet/spicy tomato glaze and it's just a different world we live in.
I adore leftover cold meatloaf sandwiches with a sharp Cheddar and whole grain mustard.
Turns out Lasagna is much better than nasty burnt Stouffers.
Mashed potatoes. My mom didn't belive in butter.
When I was about 14 years old, I volunteered to bring mashed potatoes to Thanksgiving, and my mother thought I was crazy. I had eaten mashed potatoes at a friend's house and they were amazing. I asked her mom to teach me how she made them. Mrs. McCune used butter and cream. AMAZING. I guess because of growing up poor, milk, butter, and cream were tings too dear to be wasted in a dish like potatoes. The mashed potatoes were a hit and I was asked to make them every year after that. I have tweaked my recipe over the years, and I still asked to bring them to every single family gathering.
Spaghetti.
Parents would always cook it untill it was mushy.
Al dente pasta is **amazing**
Scrambled eggs. My mother always insisted they have to be “runny”, meaning an eggy puddle with tiny ‘curds’ of solid egg. It looked and tasted like vomit.
She takes it personally that I now cook them differently. Like, it *infuriates* her that I do it “the wrong way”.
I don't like them "runny," but they should be dry and congealed like that photo. Soft, still moist curds is the way.
A lot of food. My parents were the typical white parents who didn't believe in spices or seasonings. Just throw a burger on the grill or make noodles, etc.
Grew and learned to cook on my own and my palate didn't know what to do with all the amazing flavors the world had to offer.
Bland food is like a monotone hum in the background, you can live with it, even ignore it, but it still makes life less than. Over spiced food is a loud horrible noise, so overwhelming you can't appreciate anything through it. Poorly spiced food you can hear the music but one or more discordant orover loud/soft notes ruin the experience. Properly spiced food can be anything from the softest mild music, each note supporting and bringing out the shy flavors that otherwise would be bland, to a spicy rock band to any music you can dream of, satisfying and fulfilling.
Lasagna and Cheesecakes.... my mom made both with cottage cheese to save money. Once I lived on my own I discovered ricotta and cream cheese.
Were you in the Midwest? My mother and many others did the same thing. What a difference when I moved to the East Coast.😊
Mac and cheese. My mom only made the boxed stuff. I never knew anything different until I got married and my wife made some homemade for dinner. Game changer.
I only prepared home made macaroni and cheese for my son. He tried Kraft boxed at a friend's and preferred it! Devastated, I prepared mine for a chef friend who stated it was delicious. My son, now a fantastic cook, told me he liked boxed because it was a novelty!🤣
Risotto
My mom just cooked the rice in water, then fried some ground beef without any flavoring and just combined the two with some frozen vegetables. I grew up thinking risotto would be the most tastless food ever..
Until a friend of mine showed me how he first fries the rice with butter and slowly adds consomme-wine mix to the rice and finishes with some pan-fried chicken and parmesan cheese. It blew my mind completely!
hated raw tomatoes
realized that all they were missing was salt, pepper, some toast and a lil mayo. Now I'm obsessed.
Cauliflower! Turns out, I hated steamed or boiled cauliflower. I love love love it roasted. I liked most veggies growing up - except that one.
Same with broccoli. Boiled it's just passable, but roasted it's a delight
Peas. I only had the canned ones that taste like c**p, while fresh ones are green, tasty and sweet.
I don't think I've ever had fresh peas, only frozen. The frozen ones are pretty tasty but now I'm wondering what fresh peas are like.
Everything. My mother could burn a tossed salad.
I hated cranberries for most of my life because all I ever had was canned cranberry jelly. Then. A friend of mine had a friendsgiving and someone brought homemade cranberry sauce and it changed everything
BBQ - didn’t realize how good BBQ could be until I moved to Texas. In Ohio, BBQ it meant smothering A1 sauce on bland meat.
Most mustard based stuff. Mustard on a McDonalds burger, disgusting. Mustard in a stew or on a properly prepared Chicago dog - awesome
I didn't start to appreciate mustard until I started tasting all the varieties that weren't the yellow mustard you'd put on a hot dog. I've since leaned to like yellow mustard as well in the right context.
Liver and onions. Bear with me please lol. My mom was a great cook, made international recipes, the whole 9. But when she made liver and onions, you were eating a hockey puck. Cooked it to DEATH. Fast forward to pregnant me living with my sister in law who made it one night and OMG it was amazing, tender and flavorful, perfectly spiced. I miss it. I never got her recipe 😞
I can't get past that liver flavor. Ugh. My dad loves it so occasionally my mother would get fresh from the butcher calves liver, but it's still got that liver flavor. No thanks.
Any salad. Turns out, I don't like vinaigrette. I don't know how everyone likes it, I must be the weird one.
Turns out the bun can make or break a hamburger. My mom used to always prepare them with these wheat buns, so I used to never like hamburgers. Took me a few years to realize they’re really really good with a more standard sesame, brioche, or potato bun. One of my favorite foods nowadays
Mushrooms.
My mom forced me to eat cream of mushroom soup one time and I threw up after eating it. For the longest time I associated mushrooms with that and so I avoided them until I got to college and discovered that they are actually really good.
When I was in high school, a friend of my mother's introduced us to mushrooms floured and sauteed in generous amounts of butter until brown and crisp. So delicious.
Chili— it was watery, bland and had very few beans and had spaghetti noodles in it (apparently that’s a southern US thing). It was a bowl of boring to me.
Note: this post originally had 32 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
my mom would overcook them so much. she would scramble them in a bowl (btw she was cooking for 5 people so it was a lot of eggs) and just let it sit in the pan. then when the whole thing was cooked through, she would cut it into 5 chunks and give each person one. it was gross, overcooked on the bottom but slightly runny on the top. she wouldnt put salt or pepper on them. when i was like 10 i refused to let her cook my breakfast so i got good at making fluffy scrambled eggs and now i love them. i (easily) convinced my siblings that mine were better. but then they forced me to make their breakfasts lol. my mom still makes them terribly.
My mother would deep fry oysters from time to time. I always hated them. So chewy and grainy. Finally took the plunge one day and had a fried oyster sandwich out at a seafood restaurant after I told the waitress of my oyster experience. "We're going to change all that." She delivered. Those oysters were cooked perfectly! I love oysters now. Gave the waitress and the cook a big tip!
Good to see Okra is not on this list. That s**t is straight out of Satan's a*****e.
My mum used to overcook chicken so I always thought it was a really dry meat. I've found out otherwise since but I still don't like trying to find the line between dry chicken and salmonella poisoning
A digital meat thermometer has helped me so much with this issue, just a suggestion!
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Lamb. Mom always cooked it until brown. Now I love a medium rack of lamb, or saddle, or chops, or butterflied leg...
"So Cassi, it sounds like your grandma really was the world's worst cook. What was the most disgusting thing she made if it wasn't listed?" Believe it or not, it wasn't. So grandma grew up in WW2 and she learned to make a dish called S.O.S. In theory it is a corned beef in a cream sauce dish, served over thick toast. You're supposed to soak the salt out if the corned beef before you add it to the cream sauce. Grandma felt this step was unnecessary. So, she'd basically serve us flour paste full of salt chunks absolutely blasted with stale pepper and entirely untoasted bread slices. If you let it sit for more than 5 minutes it congealed into a block on your plate. Absolutely horrible. And you had damn well better eat it within that 5 minute window or your beating was imminent.
Oh yeah, the cream sauce was two cans of cream of chicken soup, a gallon of skim milk, and however much flour and starch it took to turn it into a paste.
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Cornbeef hash. ..it wasn't until having dinner at a friend's house that I realised Cornbeef hash isn't supposed to consist of tinned Cornbeef mixed with packet mash! There was fresh beef and actual potatoes and other veg!!
The ones that blame on bad cooking skills what was a monetary issue are not fair. With the best, freshest ingredients, everything tastes better.
My mom was a horrible cook. Luckily we lived with my grandmother. She was amazing.
Pretty much everything my grandmother cooked. Everything was either too greasy or overcooked... and badly seasoned to boot. I was 14 or 15 when I realized, that stew hasn't to be "mushy" at all... (we had cooking lessons in school). It got way better, when my mom finally "took over the kitchen"... she knew what she was doing.
Salmon.... Mum thought she'd cook it as a treat for dad, baked it dry in the oven with no seasoning and an overpowering creamy sauce. Never tried it again until I was at an event with smoked salmon Canapés and my world changed, it is now the only fish i will actively look for on a menu.
My sweet, sweet husband is vegan, and got really got into cooking over the quarantine. He now handles 95% of our meals. It's amazing and he's so creative and I'm down to wash all the dishes. When we first met, his idea of dinner was canned chili, poured over a tofu-dog and heated up in the microwave. In the early years, he once asked me to make garlic green beans. And for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to make them 'just like his mom always did.' Until we were at her house, and she slid these charcoal things out of the pan and onto his plate. Turns out her special trick is that they're fried in oil until they're a sizzle away from being completely burnt. He bit down, we locked eyes...and he never asked for or tried to recreate that recipe ever again :D
I never liked BBQ ribs because my old man would cook ribs on the grill like you would a steak (direct flame) thus making his ribs tough, burnt, and chewy. After I moved down south to start college I finally got to try slow-smoked ribs that were fall-off-the-bone tender and it was like a whole new revelation in food.
My wonderful mother was a self-professed terrible cook. Loved her family dearly, but cooking was the one chore she could not stand, so when Dad told her he'd teach me how to cook, she was more than happy to let me take over almost all the cooking, at the age of 8. Dad wasn't a very good cook, but he did understand some of the basics---more than Mom did---and he was a pro baker, so once I got the basics down, he let me "have at it" in the kitchen. I made a lot of mistakes, or course, being just a little kid, but man, our meals changed hugely once I learned how to properly spice things, and how long to actually cook various meats (still hate liver, though). Learned a lot more when I married a man whose mother was from the South, and she taught me a LOT. Then I learned to improve her recipes---and we never got along again until I divorced her son after nine years of (hellish) marriage. But cook? Oh, yes, I can cook very well, and food tastes GOOD now!
Chunky vegetable and chicken soup. Growing up, my mum would puree all the soups she made, because my sister (and possibly my dad) is autistic and didn't like the texture. The only time I had chunky soup was when my grandparents made it. I hated it because the chicken always had bits of gristle on it still and they put pineapple in it for some reason. Later, when I left home, I couldn't be bothered pureeing the soup one day and found I actually enjoyed it.
I like a half pureed soup. But yay for chunky soups!
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My mother thinks scrambled eggs should be a little runny. My dad knows I like them overcooked. Literally I don't care if they're rubbery, I need there to be absolutely no liquidy egg at all. My mother doesn't understand.
Tell her you like them the way you like sex...well done.
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For me it was pork chops. My dad's usually a pretty good cook but he would overcook pork chops til they were way too tough. Everything changed the day he learned to air-fry them.
For me it’s rice. I hated it as a kid. My mum would overcook it and it would be so hard and dry. It would stick in your throat and was very tasteless. I’d avoid restaurants because the idea of paying for such a thing seemed crazy to me. Then one day a Mexican restaurant had a “free burrito” day to celebrate a new shop opening in town. So I thought hey, wonder what these are like. I love it now, and absolutely adore anything made with rice. Sushi is now one of my favourites
Mac and cheese. My mom would do a bag of the noodle and throw in one slice of cheese. I thought I hated the stuff.
I put Mrs. Dash and a little lemon juice sometimes, but I'm just as happy to eat it without anything.
my mom would overcook them so much. she would scramble them in a bowl (btw she was cooking for 5 people so it was a lot of eggs) and just let it sit in the pan. then when the whole thing was cooked through, she would cut it into 5 chunks and give each person one. it was gross, overcooked on the bottom but slightly runny on the top. she wouldnt put salt or pepper on them. when i was like 10 i refused to let her cook my breakfast so i got good at making fluffy scrambled eggs and now i love them. i (easily) convinced my siblings that mine were better. but then they forced me to make their breakfasts lol. my mom still makes them terribly.
My mother would deep fry oysters from time to time. I always hated them. So chewy and grainy. Finally took the plunge one day and had a fried oyster sandwich out at a seafood restaurant after I told the waitress of my oyster experience. "We're going to change all that." She delivered. Those oysters were cooked perfectly! I love oysters now. Gave the waitress and the cook a big tip!
Good to see Okra is not on this list. That s**t is straight out of Satan's a*****e.
My mum used to overcook chicken so I always thought it was a really dry meat. I've found out otherwise since but I still don't like trying to find the line between dry chicken and salmonella poisoning
A digital meat thermometer has helped me so much with this issue, just a suggestion!
Load More Replies... Lamb. Mom always cooked it until brown. Now I love a medium rack of lamb, or saddle, or chops, or butterflied leg...
"So Cassi, it sounds like your grandma really was the world's worst cook. What was the most disgusting thing she made if it wasn't listed?" Believe it or not, it wasn't. So grandma grew up in WW2 and she learned to make a dish called S.O.S. In theory it is a corned beef in a cream sauce dish, served over thick toast. You're supposed to soak the salt out if the corned beef before you add it to the cream sauce. Grandma felt this step was unnecessary. So, she'd basically serve us flour paste full of salt chunks absolutely blasted with stale pepper and entirely untoasted bread slices. If you let it sit for more than 5 minutes it congealed into a block on your plate. Absolutely horrible. And you had damn well better eat it within that 5 minute window or your beating was imminent.
Oh yeah, the cream sauce was two cans of cream of chicken soup, a gallon of skim milk, and however much flour and starch it took to turn it into a paste.
Load More Replies... Cornbeef hash. ..it wasn't until having dinner at a friend's house that I realised Cornbeef hash isn't supposed to consist of tinned Cornbeef mixed with packet mash! There was fresh beef and actual potatoes and other veg!!
The ones that blame on bad cooking skills what was a monetary issue are not fair. With the best, freshest ingredients, everything tastes better.
My mom was a horrible cook. Luckily we lived with my grandmother. She was amazing.
Pretty much everything my grandmother cooked. Everything was either too greasy or overcooked... and badly seasoned to boot. I was 14 or 15 when I realized, that stew hasn't to be "mushy" at all... (we had cooking lessons in school). It got way better, when my mom finally "took over the kitchen"... she knew what she was doing.
Salmon.... Mum thought she'd cook it as a treat for dad, baked it dry in the oven with no seasoning and an overpowering creamy sauce. Never tried it again until I was at an event with smoked salmon Canapés and my world changed, it is now the only fish i will actively look for on a menu.
My sweet, sweet husband is vegan, and got really got into cooking over the quarantine. He now handles 95% of our meals. It's amazing and he's so creative and I'm down to wash all the dishes. When we first met, his idea of dinner was canned chili, poured over a tofu-dog and heated up in the microwave. In the early years, he once asked me to make garlic green beans. And for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to make them 'just like his mom always did.' Until we were at her house, and she slid these charcoal things out of the pan and onto his plate. Turns out her special trick is that they're fried in oil until they're a sizzle away from being completely burnt. He bit down, we locked eyes...and he never asked for or tried to recreate that recipe ever again :D
I never liked BBQ ribs because my old man would cook ribs on the grill like you would a steak (direct flame) thus making his ribs tough, burnt, and chewy. After I moved down south to start college I finally got to try slow-smoked ribs that were fall-off-the-bone tender and it was like a whole new revelation in food.
My wonderful mother was a self-professed terrible cook. Loved her family dearly, but cooking was the one chore she could not stand, so when Dad told her he'd teach me how to cook, she was more than happy to let me take over almost all the cooking, at the age of 8. Dad wasn't a very good cook, but he did understand some of the basics---more than Mom did---and he was a pro baker, so once I got the basics down, he let me "have at it" in the kitchen. I made a lot of mistakes, or course, being just a little kid, but man, our meals changed hugely once I learned how to properly spice things, and how long to actually cook various meats (still hate liver, though). Learned a lot more when I married a man whose mother was from the South, and she taught me a LOT. Then I learned to improve her recipes---and we never got along again until I divorced her son after nine years of (hellish) marriage. But cook? Oh, yes, I can cook very well, and food tastes GOOD now!
Chunky vegetable and chicken soup. Growing up, my mum would puree all the soups she made, because my sister (and possibly my dad) is autistic and didn't like the texture. The only time I had chunky soup was when my grandparents made it. I hated it because the chicken always had bits of gristle on it still and they put pineapple in it for some reason. Later, when I left home, I couldn't be bothered pureeing the soup one day and found I actually enjoyed it.
I like a half pureed soup. But yay for chunky soups!
Load More Replies... My mother thinks scrambled eggs should be a little runny. My dad knows I like them overcooked. Literally I don't care if they're rubbery, I need there to be absolutely no liquidy egg at all. My mother doesn't understand.
Tell her you like them the way you like sex...well done.
Load More Replies... For me it was pork chops. My dad's usually a pretty good cook but he would overcook pork chops til they were way too tough. Everything changed the day he learned to air-fry them.
For me it’s rice. I hated it as a kid. My mum would overcook it and it would be so hard and dry. It would stick in your throat and was very tasteless. I’d avoid restaurants because the idea of paying for such a thing seemed crazy to me. Then one day a Mexican restaurant had a “free burrito” day to celebrate a new shop opening in town. So I thought hey, wonder what these are like. I love it now, and absolutely adore anything made with rice. Sushi is now one of my favourites
Mac and cheese. My mom would do a bag of the noodle and throw in one slice of cheese. I thought I hated the stuff.
I put Mrs. Dash and a little lemon juice sometimes, but I'm just as happy to eat it without anything.
